Spring 1964

Gabor Peterdi made this print, titled Spring, using etching, a process that lets you build up an image bit by bit, line by line. Looking closely, it's like a thicket of tangled marks, and this density gives it a real sense of life, like the forest floor itself. I love how Peterdi doesn't shy away from the nitty-gritty details. He captures the feeling of being immersed in nature. In the bottom corner, there’s a little scribble of a signature, a human mark amidst all that wildness. For me it recalls the prints of someone like Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione. In both artists, this embrace of complexity shows us that art isn't about neat answers, but about diving headfirst into the messy, beautiful questions of being.